Monthly Archives: June 2011

I had an idea in my head about what I wanted to get done by the end of the month and I accomplished it as of this morning when I finished the quilting on the Churn Dash and Stars. I’m not crazy about it but it will do and now it will wait for binding until I get back from our next trip. As you can see, I’m making great progress on my quilting goals and still have 2 months to go.

I’m usually pretty good about choosing a pantograph or allover freehand pattern that suits a particular quilt but some are harder than others. For half a second while I was piecing the Churn Dash and Star quilt I thought about not doing an overall but it’s a gift for a non quilter and I really didn’t want dense quilting (to keep it cuddly) so….today when I loaded the top, I looked through all my pantographs for something that wouldn’t compete with the piecing.

Did I choose right? Hard to tell at this point, I guess we’ll know when I’m done.

With just one item left on my list for June, I walked over to the post office to mail a couple packages and then spent the afternoon in the library. The library is open late on Tuesday and there’s a genealogy volunteer that’s been helpful so it’s a good day for me to go.

I’d had some good success finding my grandparents in Ireland and their emigration to the US via Ellis Island in the last couple weeks but today I switched back to Keith’s grandparents and found his great, great, great grandfather who was born in England and emigrated to Canada. He knew he had English ancestors but hadn’t known they came here via Canada.

Today I pieced a couple backings and then got the binding done on my UFO for Judy’s Challenge. I mentioned earlier in the month that this was the quilt that inspired me to start my website and offer my instruction sheets after so many people requested the pattern. I’m so happy to have this finished – it’s one of my older UFO’s.

You can see a little more of the quilting in this photo.

It’s been very unusual for me but the last several quilts I’ve worked on have not had the binding cut and set aside. It’s been my habit to at least cut the binding when I complete a top but obviously I fell down on the job. Luckily, I have a lot of olive green in my stash and was able to find one that works here.

Since I’m not quilting today, I thought I’d share Mom’s fan top she just completed. She thinks it’s kind of plain but I love how it turned out. I cut the blades for her with my Accuquilt GO Dresden Plate die and she used a setting from one of my Bethany Reynolds’ books.

I know a scrappy quilt like this isn’t to everyone’s taste but I just love everything about this one. The log cabin blocks, the sashing, the quilting, and the pieced back – knowing that the blocks were all from leftover strips and strings just makes it even more fun for me.

You can see how I make my log cabin blocks on theStrips and Strings Log Cabin page of my website and the sashing and border for this one are cut 2.5 inches.